your call: was he selfless or selfish

Let us set the story for you.

We decided to go out to dinner {which is a conflicting to us since we promised ourselves earlier in the week that we would only eat in since we just got back from an amazing all-inclusive, all-you-can-eat-and-drink beach vacay. which, yes, we definitely took part in the all-you-can-eat-and-drink part. so, we needed to detox}

But anyways, nothing we had bought sounded good. So we decided to hit up our favorite indie, local product pushing, skinny jean short clad waiters, joe-kane-type joint, Brasil, for some amazing hummus and a fig, proscuitto, arugula and parmesan pizza {it. is. the. best.} And the hummus. Don't get us started. Kyle craves this stuff and he doesn't even particularly like hummus. 

It's one of those restaurants that you order right when you walk in, get a number and then find a table. It was a nice night out so the patio was calling our name. 

{Side note about the table next to us. A couple with a 3 year old toddler, with a mouth full of teeth, waving, saying hi to us..... was still breastfeeding. I mean we know it's still 'okay' at that age for nutrition and maybe some other things like maybe helping the mom feel hipster, but come on. We already see his future unfolding. Momma's boy. Coddled. Fragile. Plus come on mom, that has got to hurt when he's got a full mouth of teeth.}

Back to our main story.

While we're happily eating our hummus this couple walks out on the patio each carrying their own slice of the same sweet dessert {looks like a typical cheesecake with blueberries and strawberries on top}. After they find a seat, which happens to be in our line of vision, the girl gets up to go wash her hands. 

After a couple seconds of the girl being gone, we notice him looking at each piece of cake for a long time {shifty eyes, sizing up each piece}. Dude then proceeds to switch them. 

From then on, we were wondering why? Was he being selfless or selfish. Here are our scenarios:

Hers was bigger. Simple enough, he's a fatty.

Or maybe he knows she loves strawberries or blueberries, and his original piece had more. So he gave it to her.

Or maybe a fly flew onto his. Which, sorry buddy, jokes still on you. You're still kissing her later. 

Or maybe he was proposing and put a ring in one. That one didn't play out though, because we saw them finish. Or maybe she just wasn't that excited. 

Or maybe just to see if she noticed. 

Or maybe skinny jean short clad touched his piece and he's afraid of his germs.

What scenario do you guys think happened? 

always keep your blinds shut on the first floor

- Awkward -

We were walking around in the common courtyard of our apartment complex after dinner {which is usually busy because people have been grilling out with the nice weather}. Layne was just minding her own business, when all the sudden the lights came on in an apartment that had its blinds open. Caught Layne's attention and boy was it a train wreck from there. Fat guy, in his grey tighty briefs walks into his bathroom, starts to pee. Within seconds, Layne tell's Kyle "omg look at this guy in his undies" and he notices the blinds are open and sees us looking at him. We're talking eye contact with the portly, semi-nude, springtime Santa. We turned our heads so fast and tried not to laugh. He quickly closed the blinds to finish his business.

We have this neighbor. Just his persona alone lands him in the awkward section. Name is T.D. Ex-truck driver with a stellar mullet. Super nice, but just an interesting personality. {He asked Kyle during the super bowl to help him move a couple chairs. But between chairs they sat and talked for 30 mins while drinking beer} So we were taking the dog on a walk and we get out of our apartment gate and he's standing there and then starts to purposefully walk toward us. Like he's been waiting for us this whole time. Like he's got beef. We're of course thinking, "oh goodness, here comes our neighbor with 7 guns, and he looks like he's on a warpath." So he comes up and says, "hey Kyle you wanna go play disc golf with me sometime?" Obviously you can't just say "Eh, I don't know T.D., you're a really nice guy and I totally enjoyed our deep conversation over beer and couch-moving, but I'm not sure I'm ready for that step" so Kyle says "Sure, why not?" Why not, indeed. Kyle has his first disc golf date.

Our dog's new haircut.

Kyle shattered his phone {okay, not awkward, but more like 'This Sucks'}. Yep, he has this cool neato felt case and he was getting out of his car for work and BOOM it fell out and bam it shattered. Still works, thank goodness, just can barely see the screen. Layne woke up with this awesome text at 6am: PHONE. SHATTERED.

- Awesome -

Best day of Laynes life was two days ago. We found a restaurant with Margs-to-go. Can't beat that. We we're driving around looking for hills in Houston {which, they don't exist} to do a hill workout and on the way we see a restaurant that said "Enjoy a Marg-to-go." Right then and there Kyle knew he better memorize this intersection. Esp of late, Layne has been craving margaritas. Strawberry frozen ones especially {hope she's not preg, or else she'll have to find something else to crave}.

The weather has been great. So we've been sitting on our patio every night lately. Either to eat dinner, read a book or Kyle playing his guitar while Layne sings along {right now singing to 40 Day Dream by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros} our patio has been the best thing lately {wonder if our neighbors think the same}.

A good book. You know when you have to read for school and it just plain sucks? Well we now are reading those books that we had to but on our free time and we enjoy it so much better. Kyle is almost done with The Prize, which Layne had to read in college, and just finished Ahead of the Curve by Philip Broughton. Both great books. Layne want's to start up The Prize again but has other books on her list before she goes back to that. Layne is in the middle of the most inspiring book ever: Born to Run by Christopher McDougall {Thanks Morg and Taylor}. Go read it now. If you are a runner or if you hate running, go get it. You'll want to run 100 miles. Literally.

We eat ice cream every night. We are not embarrassed by this statement either {even though ice cream and old people go together so well} We like the traditional vanilla bean but then we'll add our in our add-ins. For example we've put the following into our ice cream: twix, kit kat, brownie, elf fudge cookies, herseys chocolate, fresh strawberries, homemade chocolate chip cookies and homemade cocoa cinnamon sugar cake {no, not all at the same time}. Next Layne wants to try cereal, like: Trix, Cap'n Crunch, Cocoa Cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch and any other type of cereal.

When we came back from Tulsa two weeks ago, Layne's parents sent us back with about 15 beers. Some really good beers, mind you.

next purchase: another rubber dog frisbee

Kyle was sweet. Kyle tried to be sneaky. Kyle had a little surprise up his sleeve.

The thing about Kyle and surprises though, is that he can't keep them. He planned to take Layne and Char on a little road trip to Chappell Hill for a picnic, to see beautiful bluebonnet fields and to walk around a state park on Saturday. Kyle was too excited to keep it to himself, so he kept giving little hints. By the time we were in the car on Saturday Layne knew the whole plan.

A hour and a half later, we arrive at Chappell Hill and went to a lavender farm to have lunch. It was beautiful. The lavender hadn't fully bloomed yet, but the blue bonnets in the field were darn pertty. There was a perfectly cute, quaint little gazebo to have our lunch, but it was too cute.... and crowded. So we headed over to the trees and had it in the shade. We were even smart enough to bring a blanket to sit on. But not smart enough to bring dog food for the pup. Char got a tad bored during the picnic because we weren't nice enough to let her eat our food {she's not that spoiled, but she may have gotten a piece of pb&j by accident}. We let her off her leash and she went roaming through the blue bonnet field.

please don't mind her new haircut.

we know it's short.

we're more embarrassed than she is.

but she does love it.

i mean, c'mon.

picture perfect dog.

We started driving and... we saw this.

The most beautiful field. Orange and blue {actually, it was orange and purple. Why are bluebonnets called bluebonnets? They are purple}. If we hadn't gotten married already, or if we had a field like this in Oklahoma, or if we lived in Chappell Hill, Texas, we would have gotten married in this field. First, the field is in our wedding colors {totally copying us}. Second, It was just beautiful. Third, I love outdoor weddings. Fourth, it was just beautiful. Layne can already picture our second wedding here.

If Layne was a wedding planner she would make people get married here. In the contract.

Sun was bright for her little eyes.

The main point of the day was actually this next part. Going to Wahington-on-the-Brazos-State-Park. But obviously before we even got to the park we found amazing views. The park was cool, but we can see us taking the trip again just to go back to the lavender farm and the random bluebonnet fields we saw. We pull up and it was packed. I guess the day before Easter this park has a ritual cookout for everybody in Texas {it was that packed}. Kids were everywhere. So we decided to leave the crazy area.

There was a 'Dogs on Leash only' sign and of course we did this:

I'm sorry we're not sorry. She needed to run free for a little. I mean how can you not let her run off her lease when she looks that cute while running. And nobody was around this part of the park.

On our little walk we came upon the Texas Independence Hall where they signed the Declaration of independence from Mexico to create the Republic of Texas. {I guess if we would ave grown up inTexas we would have taken a history field trip here}.

Now, everybody knows we love Char. Obviously by taking her on a day trip instead of just the two of us. And she was exhausted from it as well. She slept the whole way back {and that's saying something because on the drive from Tulsa to Colorado, she didn't sleep once}. But we felt bad that she had to be in the car for a hour and a half, so on the way home we went by the dog park. She perked right on up when she found out.

She's pretty darn amazing at catching the frisbee. But it turned out to be a sad day. She was getting a little hot running around catching the frisbee and right next to us was the pond at the dog park. All the other dogs were running and jumping in it, so we had this smart idea to throw her frisbee in there so she would jump in and cool off. Well we threw the frisbee...

She sat and watched it.

Then it sunk.

To the bottom.

Goodbye her favorite toy. And she knew it too. She was/is depressed.

Any takers on buying her a new rubber dog frisbee will become her new favorite person for 5 minutes.

livin' on tulsa time

Last weekend was the first time we had made it home since we had moved here. 3 months to be exact. 3 months from Tulsa time. 3 months from seeing all our nephews. 3 months from driving in a city that takes 10 mins to get from one end to the other.

It was a swell time. Drove up on Friday {took the car instead of flying because we are the most loving parents... or because we have the most spoiled dog. We don't like to board her if we don't have too. Saves money and hello, she wanted to see her cousins Boone and Lucy just like we wanted to see ours} It was a packed weekend, so right when we got into town we dropped the girl off at Mamy and Grandpa's house {L's parents} and then went on out with friends. Great catching up with Rob, Tanee, Sarah, Eric and Brad. We got dinner at Andolini's and then got a couple beers at the White Owl. Good times.

'Nother note on the drive. 75 feels like a tortuous stretch of the most exasperating road ever paved compared with free-flowing traffic on 45 from houston to dallas. And Okmulgee. Freakin' Okmulgee. A town created for the sole purpose of adding 15 minutes to the overall drive. How 'bout we create 75 business route for all those dumb little towns that we're forced to drive through then we don't have to slow down and have to watch speed limits signs like a hawk.

Bright and early the next morning Kyle went out with all the boys to play golf for Cameron's birthday. Kyle and Callan played on a scramble together. We won't mention how they did.

That night we celebrated Cameron's 26th birthday by the usual: hang out, grill hotdogs and hamburgers, drink beer, play bocce ball, watch some basketball. Not only was it great to see some family we haven't seen in 3 months, butttttttttt it was our first time to meet new baby Gunner Van. What a cute kid. It was crazy with all the kids running around, Will making Sunny laugh as usual, Briggsy and Leo kissing on each other, and Charlie and Stilly were having a ball together.

Meet our newest nephew, Gunner Van McKenzie.

Sweet big brother Will loving on his new brother.

After all the festivities, we went down to the Dust Bowl and got a beer with a few family and some friends. On a side note, why do all kinds of bars nowadays have dj's that play music that is: A) absolutely the worst music in the world, or B) music that is tolerable but YOU HAVE TO SHOUT AT THE TOP OF YOUR LUNGS JUST SO YOU CAN HEAR EACH OTHER??!? I mean, fa'real, can we not just have places where music is a normal volume, not anything trendy-crap-pop, that we can have a conversation over at a comfortable speaking level. So many times, we tell ourselves that we won't return to a bar because a dj ruined the experience. Step up ya game, dj's. We found sanctuary out back in a secluded, sparse courtyard but needless to say, we left that joint early cause we were also getting up early and we wanted to get a good breakfast up at BBDII before we got on our way.

Yum, BBDs. Want right now.

Also wanting: Bueno. Can't believe we didn't get while we were in Bueno capital of the world, Tulsa. Actually, we can believe it since our new year's resolution was to not eat fast food, but still, we kinda wish we woulda just done it anyways.

28 Dillard's Later

We went to see a movie on last Friday. It was Safe House {no we did not go see Hunger Games. It was opening day and it was crazyyy}. On our scale of 1-10 {obv. 1=walk out/turn it off within 10 mins and 10=watch every single day, like the HP series} it made a 5. Prob wouldn't see it again, but it was kinda entertaining. But what made it alright was that we went to one of those awesome theaters where you can order legitimate foods and drinks during the movie from waiters. It was our first time to try one of these theaters out. We get there and walk into our theater and... we were the only ones in it! Complete relaxation with the waiter all to ourselves. They usually have this "once the previews start NO MORE TALKING! and write on the card what you want" type of deal {all caps were a must for that because we got there only 1o minutes before it started and we saw a NO TALKING preview about 100 times. They are serious. There was the funniest movie theather commercial about it too. All we remember was that there were dancing food items playing hardcore metal music singing a song that said "we'll kick your ass out if you talk..." so yah, they are serious about the no talking} The food was alright. Layne got a pizza and Kyle got a pulled pork sandwich. But the beer was great. From now on, we are only going to get drinks and a movie instead of paying a lot for food we can find in the freezer section.

So this theater was attached to a mall, so afterwards we walked around the mall to check it out {for Tulsans, we'd compare this mall to Eastland mall}. Now it was 6:15pm when we got out. And it was like a ghost land. We went into Dillards and they closed at 7, so needless to say things seemed a bit off. I mean, closing at 7 pm. On a Friday night. I mean, this place should be hopping with middle-school horn-dogs trying to get their pre-pubescent mack on. But apparently this mall is not a hot spot for normal Friday activities and Dillard's was the same way. Guess they were having some sort of apocalyptic sale because for starters, everything was at least 65% off.

Know what you're thinking. "Awesome--I could spend so much money! I need a new pastel yellow Polo hat for Easter."

We almost thought the same thing. But then we took a gander around and it was ridiculous. There are really no words to describe, but we'll do our best. Imagine a department store from I Am Legend, then fill it with a few workers and some random sketch looking customers. The ambience: dimly lit, unusually muggy for a mall, faint aroma of nursing home. We felt like we should be watching out for zombies coming around the corner. And, it was just a weird feeling. There was a lot of stuff, and it was all on the racks, but things were so...unorganized. Layne was stressin', no doubt.

For instance. On one circular rack there were clothes for a skinny teenage girl to a grandma looking for her cotton nighty. There was no hope to find good stuff for Layne. Kyle then thought, hey maybe we can find some discount men's shoes. Tough luck, homeboy. Unless, that is you are really trying to bring back the Birkenstock clogs from 1998. On sale for like $60, just waiting for you. No rush though, they had like 56 pairs in each size. Hot item, right there. Kyle did try them on to reminisce his old ones and they made his feet look even bigger {possible?}. The toe box is so wide you could make a sandwich on it. For real though, it would have been hard to find anything good. Oh sure, we were up for taking time to check it all out since we had nothing to do, but remember that we were in bizarro Dillard's and we only had 45 minutes. And the first 15 of those 45 were spent trying to get our heads wrapped around this mess of a department store.

We left. Bought nothing. Will not return.

jamba juice is the answer

The Culhane Bed and Breakfast is on a roll. Guests No. 3&4 were successfully entertained.

Morgan and Taylor came down over the weekend and stayed a few days. It was their spring break and since Taylor is moving down here later this year they thought they'd get a head start on looking at apartments. And let us tell ya, they weren't ready for the amount of apartment complexes here. I mean, there are millions of 'em and they all start looking the same -- wood floors, granite counter tops, great amenities, washer & dryer and steep rent that us Tulsan's aren't used too. We ran into the same problem when we came down to look. We had a notebook that after we went through a place we jotted down notes to remind us of the pros and cons. And since we had a dog we had even more things to think about with what the compex offered us aka do they even allow pets, do they have a dog area to let them off their leash and what was the dog weight limit {sometimes we found out that it was 35 lbs for that particular apartment complex and our dog is full grown and 40 lbs.... and they wouldn't take her. Jokes on you suckas since we have pretty much the best dog in the galaxy} So, honestly we pretty much had to choose the apartment we were going to live in by how our dog would like it. Again, usually they have a pet weight limit, but ours is by breed. Which is actually better so you don't have the aggressive ones around. I mean, come on, you can have a 100 lb golden retriever but it's the nicest dog in the world. Why not let it live there?! So once we found a nice complex that was in a decent area with an amazing dog run we threw in the towel and stopped looking at others.

Back to the main point of this post: friends.

It was wonderful having them here. Really makes us excited for when he moves down and she comes to visit him. They came on St. Patty's day and we had planned to go to dinner at a cool irish pub in Rice Village and then afterwards walk to a couple other pubs. We did not plan well. We knew it was going to crowded, but the crowd that we saw was astonishing. The place we had planned to go to dinner was so packed that Layne and Morgan got out of the car to see how long the wait would be, but before they even got in they were going to be charged a 10$ cover. No thanks. Not to just eat and get a beer {it probably woulda taken 2 hours to get our food anyway}. So we started to drive away from the green masses and happened to go by a cute, small Mexican restuarnt that Morgan had eaten at before. No line. No green people. Just good mexican food, margs and beers. Finally after that we decided to drive back into the crowd to go to one of our favorite pubs that had no cover: The Gingerman. {Kyle esp loves it since he is aginger and a man, and we bought him a beer glass with the logo. And now that we're thinking, all redheads should get at least one free beer at that pub. After all it's their pub} When we all went back home, we taught them to play Nertz and Kyle especially demolished the competition. It was a fun night, but finally the girls were tired so we went off to bed. The boys however decided to stay up, catch up and drink a couple, er... a few, old fashioneds.

Next morning came way to soon, esp for those boys. We made some waffles, took naps, ate our favorite pizza, took more naps, went out to city center, ate some Chicken Tikka Masala, went home to watch the Thunder play and then off to bed. Successful Sunday.

While Kyle was at work, Layne, Morgan and Taylor went to look at some apartment complexes for him. We did go through some cool ones and I think they found a front runner that day. For lunch we met up with Kyle and ate at a hamburger joint: Southwells. Layne doesn't usually eat meat. She's not necessarily a vegetarian, but 99% of the time while at a restaurant she'll order a meal with no meat. Randomly though, doesn't happen too often, she gets those cravings for meat. On this day a hamburger sounded good. No, not good. Amazing. And it was gone in like 2 bites. We then whisked them off to Central Market and bought some food for that nights dinner: fish tacos with mango salsa, lime-marinated cabbage, corn on the cob. We also got some white wine to drink with those tasty tacos. Afterwards Layne and Morgan proceeded to open up three more bottles of red wine. It was their fun night.

We have this huge glass vase type thing we got for our wedding {from Layne's awesome cousins Rosana and Anthony - thanks again!} and we decided to fill it up with the wine corks from all the bottles we drink. When we open up a bottle with friends or family we have them sign it and put the date on it. Whenever it's full, we'll empty it and go through it and remember all the fun memories. Morgs and Tay already have a couple corks in there and I'm sure there will be more in the future.

The next day consisted of more "apartment shopping". Before we could function we went to our favorite cafe to get some breakfast and Layne's favorite chai lattes {these are so good they could be a factor for staying in Houston longer than we thought}. That breakfast was awesome, so awesome that we forgot to get hungry for lunch. 3 pm rolled around and the Barca game was about to come on, so what do we do? We headed straight on over to our favorite english pub Richmond Arms and had a late lunch. This was a must do on our list since Taylor is a Liverpool fan and will have the pleasure of watching Liverpool lose to Arsenal at least twice next season.

It was so great to spend time with them and truly catch up. Haven't really done that with them since highschool {or that's what it felt like!}. But honestly we are super excited for another friend to move to our new stomping grounds and to hang out with them more. Oh the memories us four will make.

Once again, no pics with our house guests. We have to be diligent photo takers. No more wishy washy, fake photogs in this family.

here piggy piggy

This past weekend we had our first official visitors! Katy and Devin {Layne's sorority sister and her arm candy} came down from Irving to see us...

Dag yo, it was a blast! First of all, they got in on Friday night and after dropping of their bags at our apartment, we headed out to a little place called the Royal Oak. It's a bar/pub down in Neartown and it was our first trip to the place. It was pretty cool, good ambiance, seemingly non-douchey crowd, diverse drink selection, tasty looking food menu. Except the music was way too loud. Like, way, way too loud. Like, couldn't even talk to our friends that we haven't seen in basically 15 years. But, gotta add that this place allegedly makes a mean old fashioned. Bacon maple rye, only one dash bitters, maple syrup, orange peel. Sounds yummy, gotta go back for one. But back to business, besides the music, we had a great time beginning our catch-up weekend.

Next day we took them on our weekly Memorial Park walk with Char and then just hung out and played Nertz the rest of the day. Other than the fact that Layne kicked the butt out of everyone in Nertz {well, Devin had a small winning streak... at the end} everybody had fun. For dinner we went to Chachos, which is a pretty darn good TexMex place near our apartment open24 hours. Yes, all day, everyday. It's nice to know if we wake up at 3 am one night starving {or when Layne is pregnant and craving breakfast tacos at 11:38 pm} we know of a good place thats a half mile away. Afterwards we decided to take them to our friendly, neighborhood Arsenal pub: The Richmond Arms. Perfect relaxed atmosphere to finish the weekend. Next time, we're gonna be heading up to Irving to check out their neck of the woods. Can't wait!

Interesting aside: contrary to normal female operations, Layne and Katie only took 3 pics together and they were all within 10 seconds of each other. That's it. Two sorority sisters, 40 hours together, 3 pics. And one is blurry. Strange stuff...

In other news, we got a homemade bacon infused rye recipe from Mr. Hulse. Heard it was good, but obviously we don't just trust word of mouth, but rather taste of mouth; therefore, we decided to make it on our own.

And it's amazing.

Process of making it is pretty easy--alls you need is a bit o' bacon fat and some spirits {we chose rye, so the spice and the smoke would meld...hopefully}. We tried a sip neat and then had it with some orange peel, bitters and maple syrup in an old fashioned. Pretty tasty stuff. Also, K commissioned L to create a label for some bottles that we got for the bacon rye, seeing as how she's the resident Picasso. It turned out pretty bad-a, if we do say so ourselves.

Currently watching: Bachelor finale {we're always a day behind on shows bc we do Hulu/Netflix instead of cable}. Courtney is so blah, with her stupid mouth-pucker, side slanty smirk. But Linzi always does this head-down, eyes-up, weird look-y thing. Plus certainly there is a resident Bachelor/ABC hair stylist that travels to these locations and makes sure everything is in order, right? I mean, can we not please just cut Benjamin's hair, please??

Currently craving: donuts. Can someone tell us why donut places aren't open 24/7 like Chacho's?

Stay tuned for the next episode.